"There is no such crime as a crime of thought: there are only crimes of action." Clarence Darrow, 1917.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Fort Hood Massacre - "Workplace Violence" Claim seems Bogus

I usually devote about 30 minutes in the morning to read the overnight news. Starting with the DRUDGE REPORT saves me a lot of time, but it is just a launch pad, not the destination. This morning I was startled by a headline that referred back to the infamous Fort Hood Massacre, claiming that the Obama Administration had dismissed the massacre as an example of "workplace violence". The implication, nay the accusation, was that the Obama regime and its minions in the Defence Department were being painfully politically correct, avoiding the obvious... that the Fort Hood gunman is a cold blooded exponent of Islamic Fascism.

Well, as I often caution my students... check your sources before you quote. The DRUDGE link was to a Fox News piece (see below) and a Google News search indicated that everyone else was quoting the Fox article. Senator Susan Collins (Rep. Maine) yesterday testified in a Washington hearing on terrorism, and "referenced a letter from the Defence Department depicting the Fort Hood shootings as workplace violence". Heinous if true. But not. Collins either lied or misquoted her own report.

The report is called A TICKING TIME BOMB: Counterterrorism Lessons From the U.S. Government's Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood Attack. It is archived HERE. The report is credited to Joseph I Lieberman, Chairman and Susan M. Collins, and dated for the record February 3, 2011. Much of the content is REDACTED, so don't expect to read secrets... just information you will not find reported by the commercial media.

The single reference to "workplace violence" in the Lieberman - Collins report is not a quote at all, but the authors' own characterization of DoD's intent. Further, there is no footnote for the alleged DoD position. What sloppy crap! This is the stripe of distortion all to common in the record keeping during this so-called War on Terror.